Overview

Calcutta is a city in a state of permanent surprise, where amazement is around every crumbling corner, and astonishment lurks over every rickshaw-puller's shoulder. It is a city that never ceases to shock those who pass through, and it is also a city that manages to delight and enthrall those who are stalwart enough to stay and brave enough to make an effort to look, and to see.

Best-selling writer Simon Winchester explores his love-hate relationship with Calcutta, a city that ...

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Overview

Calcutta is a city in a state of permanent surprise, where amazement is around every crumbling corner, and astonishment lurks over every rickshaw-puller's shoulder. It is a city that never ceases to shock those who pass through, and it is also a city that manages to delight and enthrall those who are stalwart enough to stay and brave enough to make an effort to look, and to see.

Best-selling writer Simon Winchester explores his love-hate relationship with Calcutta, a city that provokes intense reactions in all who visit. Collaborating with his son Rupert, Simon muses on his time spent in Calcutta, reflecting on his experiences, preconceptions and own individual fascination with the city.

The Winchesters' personal essays are presented with a selection of wide-ranging extracts penned by other visitors to this surprising city. The result is a personal view of one of the world's most resonant destinations that also acts as an essential introduction to the wealth of writing on the subject.

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal

Simon Winchester (The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary) and son Rupert combine literary forces in Lonely Planet's inaugural title in its new "Writer and Place" travel literature series, which will focus on the favorite destinations of well-known writers. Based in India between 1977 and 1979, Winchester found Calcutta a unique blend of East and West and a "city that manages to delight ...those who are stalwart enough to stay." Consisting of three essays by the authors, one of which is a brief history of the city, the book also presents extracts from journal entries, poems, novels, and travel narratives about Calcutta from both writers Western and Calcutta-born-e.g., Paul Theroux, Rudyard Kipling, and Rabindranath Tagore. The strong, concise history and extracts provide the traveler with historical perspective; the emphasis on the era of the British Raj make it most suitable for those interested in colonial rather than contemporary Calcutta.-Ravi Shenoy, Naperville P.L., IL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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